For an island that depends on an underground aquifer for its drinking water, data showing that conservation efforts are succeeding and residents are using less comes as good news.
In a recent report, the Suffolk County Water Authority says that new rules for lawn watering, enhanced credits for installing water-saving devices, and an extensive outreach and messaging campaign to stress the importance of water conservation have paid off. With the summer and the lawn watering season ending, SCWA says that peak pumping rates were lower than in 2022 despite droughts in both years.
"We understand that it's going to be multi-effort to change behavior in Suffolk County," said SCWA Chairman Charles Lefkowitz. "Many of our customers have habits built over a lifetime, and we are asking them to change them for the good of the water system. Even though this was just the first year of this new effort, we are already seeing that our customers are changing to the odd/even lawn watering schedule and taking other steps to reduce their water use."
Operating under summer drought conditions, the highest level of pumping reached this year was 515,720 gallons per minute, a 3.4% reduction from the peak last year of 533,338 gallons per minute, the Authority reported. That difference represents the capacity of about 15 large supply wells.
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A Suffolk County Water Authority worker tackles a damaged
hydrant on Railroad Avenue in Center Moriches. Robert Chartuk
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To promote the new measures, SCWA began a proactive outreach campaign to its customers using digital, radio, and newspaper ads to inform customers of the new policies. That was bolstered by direct outreach efforts with phone messages, emails, and supplemental information on customer bills. During the summer, they held four community meetings focused on drinking water that it calls WaterTalks. The meetings put special emphasis on the importance of water conservation, allowing SCWA staff to make direct appeals to hundreds of customers.
"We are making water conservation one of our top priorities because if we can reduce water demand, then we can avoid building costly additional infrastructure," said Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Szabo. "It makes financial sense for the Authority and for our customers because it helps us keep our rates low."
Customers are responding in a positive way to the agency's operations, with a recent survey finding that 70% approve of their customer service and 72% are happy with the quality of the water. Notably, a majority of residents indicated that they feel that the cost of their bill is appropriate.
"We are humbled by the overwhelmingly positive response from our customers," Lefkowitz said. "These survey results reflect the tireless efforts of our employees and the commitment of the Authority to surpassing customer expectations."